Buffing wheel



May 16, 1950 c, MILLER 2,508,072

BUFFING WHEEL Filed Sept. 29, 1947 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 \NVENTOR doHN C. MILLER owc ATTORNEYS;

J. c. MILLER BUFFING WHEEL May 16, 1950 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Sept. 29, 1947 \uvamoa Km c M Wm Patented May 16, 1950 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 3 Claims.

This invention relates to buffing wheels, and is generally concerned with the production of a much improved, longer lasting bufiing wheel, which is more economical in the use of buffin material.

Buffing Wheels, in general, when mounted upon a driven arbor with which they are connected, are made of a plurality of sections of a disk form and circular in outline each with an opening at the center for the passage through it of an arbor.

The buffing wheel is generally made of a soft cotton fabric material and the parts which make up a disk, of which a number are used for the complete wheel, are sewed together so as to be inseparable. Many types of sewing are used, but normally the sewing extends to the periphery of the disk. When a number, or plurality of such disks are placed together, side by side on an arbor and securely clamped and pressed together, a buffing wheel having a fixed width equal to the combined widths of the several disks used is provided, to the peripheral surface of which a desired buffing material is supplied. The soft fabric is quite absorbent and is also subject to damaging and sometimes partial or complete destruction of utility at the outer peripheral edges of the wheel due to the generation of heat and high temperature when the articles processed are pressed against the rapidly turning wheel.

In the present invention the object and purpose is to provide a bufling whee1 wherein there are placed between adjacent disks, a plurality of which make up a wheel, and at the outer side of the outermost disks, a circular sheet of a heavier fabric of a stiffened and much less yielding quality than the cloth sheets of the buffing wheel, which, when the wheel containing such stiffened disks are driven at a high speed, will remain in parallel planes perpendicular to the axis of rotation and strongly resist being pressed upwardly or changed from said planes, thus strengthening and reinforcing the wheel at its outer sides and spaced intervals between sides, holding the softer fabrics of the bufiing wheel against separating and deformation under processed article pressure thereagainst and eliminating the necessity of stitching or otherwise connecting the fabrics of the disks or sections together other than outwardly part of the distance from their centers to their peripheries. Further, the heavier and rigid disks of fabric serve to protect the softer buffing fabric between them, dividing the complete buffing wheels into parallel sections or laminations, and thereby decreasing excess absorption of bufiing material, and aid in the production of a more perfect working head at the peripheral surfaces of the wheel.

An understanding of the invention may be had from the following description, taken in connection with the following drawings, in which Figs. 1 to 3 inclusive, are elevations showing the progressive steps of folding the buffing material of soft cotton fabric to form the body of a bufling wheel disk lamination.

Fig. 4 shows such buffing wheel disk or lamination complete.

Fig. 5 is a perspective view illustrating the nesting of the several sections used in making complete lamination.

Fig. 6 shows a plurality of such disks or laminations located side by side on an arbor and clamped in fixed relation to each other, at the outer sides and at the adjacent contacting sides of which laminations, the heavier more rigid fabric members are located, and

Fig. 7 shows diagrammatically the manner in which a larger buflin wheel with many more laminations or disks separated by the heavier fabric, stiffer disks may be made.

Like reference characters refer to like parts in the different figures of the drawings.

In the disclosure made, the various disks or laminae, a plurality of which are used in 9, buffing wheel, are each made up of nested segments, which in turn are formed from a single circular piece 1 of soft fabric material, shown in Fig. 1, which has a central opening 2. Such circular section of material is folded upon a diameter 3, providing a double thickness, half-circular section as in Fig. 2, in which the central opening 2 becomes a semicircular recess 2a. It is then folded upon a radius 4 (Fig. 2) at right angles to the diameter 3, forming a sector (Fig. 3) in the form of a quadrant, which segment is generally indicated at 5. The folded lines provided by folding on the diameter 3 provide one radial edge at 5 of such sector and the fold upon the radius 4 provide the other radial edge at I, while the recess 2a by the last described folding, becomes a recess of quadrant form 2?) as shown.

A plurality of the segments are partially nested, best shown in Fig. 5, and the nesting is continued around the disk or lamination until it is completed. Only fractional parts of each of the sides of the segments are left uncovered at both sides of the disk. The several recesses 21) of quadrant form form a continuous central opening through the assembled disk or lamination. The disk may be covered at each side by a circular sheet 8 of the same material which, when such disks are assembled and connected together and a number of them placed over an arbor with separating sheets 9 of heavier impregnated fabric, such side sheets or sections 8 will be located one against the opposite sides of the intermediate sheets 9. Such outside single circular sheets 8 together with the nested segments as described are perma nently connected together by stitching through them from the center outward as shown at ID in Fig. 4. While the stitchin is of a helical character, the particular type of stitching is of no importance in the invention and may be any of the well known sewing stitching which is used.

With my invention however, it is not necessary to carry the stitching out to the peripheries of the disks or laminations made, but preferably will extend out from the center not more than onehalf of the length of the radius of the disk.

In addition to the intermediate sheets 9, at the 9 are of a light canvas, preferably of considerable greater weight than the adjacent side cover sheets 8 which may be used with the wheel laminations, and are impregnated with a suitable liquid material which, upon drying, hardens, thereby greatly strengthening and stiffening the sheets 9. Materials which may be used are drying oils which become comparatively hard on drying, or equivalent synthesized varnishes having the properties of drying from a liquid to a hardened form. Thus the treated circular sections 9 are not of the soft and yielding character of the materials from which the sectors and sheets 8 are made; and which when the wheel is rotated at a high speed above 2000 R. P. M., will stay in their planes and not be easily forced therefrom. In Fig. 6, the shaft 1 l is shown having an arbor I2 extending therefrom at one end, of a size to pass through the central openings of the disk laminations of the wheel and through the treated, heavier and more resistant circular sheets 9. The disk laminations of the wheel are placed, as many as may be wanted, upon the arbor the innermost against a circular back plate l3 and with the treated sheets 9 between adjacent laminae and at the outer sides of the outer laminations. An outer circular plate I4 is located against the outermost sheet 9. A nut i5 screwed on to the arbor clamps the several disk laminations tightly together to make a complete buffing wheel.

Of course, the width of the wheel may be varied by varying the number of the disks and sheets 9 used. In Fig. '7 the larger number is indicated, each separated from that next adjacent by one of the heavier treated sheets 9. The diameter of the plates l3 and [I may be such as to cover the stitching I0. When a wheel is worn down at its surface so that its diameter approaches that of the diameter of the holding and clamping disks I 3 and I, the usefulness of the wheel is over, and it will be removed and replaced by another.

While the invention is disclosed in connection with a specific form of structure of a wheel disk or lamination of fabric, it is to be understood that the invention is of like utility in conjunction with disk or laminae made up of thin, fiat, circular Cir 4 fabric sheets, suflicient of them being placed side by side and stitched together for the required thickness of the lamination. Whatever may be the structural method followed in producing the relatively thin disks or laminations for the purpose of using a plurality of them in building a complete buffing wheel, the heavier reinforced circular sheets 9 which have been treated as set forth are availed of and used between successive laminations and at the outer side of the outermost thereof securely clamped in place in the assembled bufiing wheel.

Such heavier, treated outside and intermediate dividing sheets 9 extend to the periphery of the wheel and upon pressure thereagainst of articles which are buffed, have a tendency to flatten out in both directions at their edges from the planes of said sheets 9, partly overlapping and covering the adjacent edges of the softer fabric of the sectors 5 and dividing the peripheral surfaces of the wheel into divisions, the width of each of which does not exceed the thickness of a disk. The bufling material applied at the peripheral surfaces of the assembled wheel thereby will not penetrate as far as though the wheel face of the wheel was of a homogeneous character. The outer peripheral portions of the wheel are maintained against lateral yielding at the places where the work is pressed thereagainst. The working head at the buifing surface applied to the wheel is bettered, and wear upon the peripheral surface of the wheel is decreased. Said treated sheets 9 are heavily resistant to wear, substantially impervious to burning or charring and protect the softer fabric between them in a considerable measure against such burning or charring or other high temperature damage.

The invention is defined in the appended claims and is to be considered comprehensive of all forms of structure coming within their scope.

I claim:

1. A buifing wheel comprising a plurality of circular sections clamped upon an arbor, each of said sections being made of a plurality of segments of relatively soft folded fabric fastened together near the center of the section and a disk of relatively stifl fabric impregnated with a drying oil located between each pair of sections.

2. The elements of claim 1 combined with disks of said relatively stiff impregnated fabric located at the outer sides of the outer sections of said wheel.

3. The elements of claim 1 combined with a flat disk of relatively soft fabric fastened to the outer sides of each section.

JOHN C. IVIILLER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 895,641 Hyatt Aug. 11, 1908 911,889 Levett Feb. 9, 1909 981,841 Codman et al Jan. 17, 1911 2,033,253 Pfohl Mar. 10, 1936 2,121,496 Bowen et al June 21, 1938 2,405,524 Sharpe et a1 Aug. 6, 1946 

